Dan Budnik

Budnik studied painting at the Art Students League of New York in the early 1950s under Charles Alston, who he credited for inspiring his interest in photojournalism.{{cite interview |url=http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22222/1/dan-budnik-photographer-interview |title=In the moment: Dan Budnik |subject=Dan Budnik |interviewer=Stephen Whelan |date=October 18, 2014 |publisher=Dazed |accessdate=February 24, 2018}} He was drafted into the Army and served until he was 22. After working as an assistant to Philippe Halsman, he joined Magnum Photos in 1957, where his first assignment was photographing atrocities in Cuba in 1958. "As long as you didn't sleep in the same bed two nights running you were relatively safe. Batista was killing about seven people a night in interrogation. You'd wake up in the morning and there would be a body hanging in a tree as a warning not to get involved." He eventually photographed material for Life,{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oUgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA28 |title=Famous painter assessing another's work |author=Budnik, Dan |date=July 20, 1959 |magazine=Life |pages=28–29 |accessdate=February 24, 2018}} Sports Illustrated, and Vogue magazines.

{{quote |text=It was my second day in kindergarten and we were playing marbles. This kid who’d moved up from Alabama leaps up and starts throwing fistfuls of stones at this old black man walking under a tree nearby. I can still hear the sound of them ripping through the leaves. I grabbed him and shook him, asking what the man had done to him. He just started letting off the n-word. ‘He's one of them!’ he said over and over in a crazy rage. I didn't understand how someone who was only five could be poisoned like that. As I travelled to Selma, I had that in my mind. |author=Dan Budnik |source=2014 interview}}

He was one of the photographers to capture the March on Washington in 1963.{{cite news |url=http://azdailysun.com/news/local/flagstaff-photographer-documents-the-dream/article_e049a800-0d4a-11e3-bc81-0019bb2963f4.html |title=Flagstaff photographer documents the Dream |author=Betz, Eric |date=August 25, 2013 |newspaper=Arizona Daily Sun |accessdate=February 24, 2018}} Later, Budnik convinced Life to commission him to create a long-term photo essay showing the seriousness of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, during which he photographed both Martin Luther King Jr. and George Wallace. However, Life declined to publish his work after devoting two consecutive issues to covering the march using other photographers.{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/on-the-road-to-civil-rights-extraordinary-images-of-the-selma-march-seen-for-the-first-time-10057218.html |title=On the road to civil rights: Extraordinary images of the Selma march seen for the first time |author=Walker, Tim |date=February 22, 2015 |newspaper=The Independent |accessdate=February 24, 2018}}

Since 1970, Budnik has worked with the Hopi and Navajo Native American tribes, for which he was awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1973) and the Polaroid Foundation (1980).{{cite web |url=http://danbudnik.com/aboutdan/ |title=About Dan |author=Budnik, Dan |year=2013 |website=danbudnik.com |accessdate=February 24, 2018}}

During his career, Budnik has photographed Candice Bergen, Sophia Loren, Martin Luther King Jr., Georgia O'Keeffe, Willem de Kooning, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The American Society of Media Photographers awarded Budnik its 1998 Honor Roll Award.

Budnik has work in the collections of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia,{{citation needed|date=March 2018}} and the Museum of Modern Art.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}} Budnik also exhibited his work at the Agnes gallery.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

Budnik lived and worked in Tucson, Arizona.{{cite web |url=https://www.asmp.org/portfolio/dan-budnik/ |title=Dan Budnik |publisher=American Society of Media Photographers |accessdate=February 24, 2018 |archive-date=March 7, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180307152545/https://www.asmp.org/portfolio/dan-budnik/ |url-status=dead }} Budnik died on August 14, 2020, at an assisted living facility in Tucson.{{cite news |title=Noted photographer Dan Budnik dies in Arizona at age 87 |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/noted-photographer-dan-budnik-dies-arizona-age-87-72433695 |accessdate=August 18, 2020 |work=ABC News |date=August 18, 2020}}

• The Book of Elders: The Life Stories of Great American Indians, as told to Sandy Johnson, photographed by Dan Budnik. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1994. {{ISBN|978-0-06-250837-9}}
• {{cite book |url=http://trolleybooks.com/bookSingle.php?bookId=247 |title=Marching to the Freedom Dream |author=Budnik, Dan |date=2014 |publisher=Trolley Books |location=London |isbn=9781907112478 |accessdate=February 24, 2018 |archive-date=July 10, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180710072015/http://trolleybooks.com/bookSingle.php?bookId=247 |url-status=dead }}

• List of photographers of the civil rights movement

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• {{cite magazine |url=http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/10314/1/dazed-confused-june-issue-age-of-craziness |title=Cult VIP: Dan Budnick |date=June 2011 |magazine=Dazed & Confused |accessdate=February 24, 2018 |archive-date=February 16, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180216160044/http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/10314/1/dazed-confused-june-issue-age-of-craziness |url-status=dead }}
• {{cite magazine |url=https://time.com/3801522/time-presents-one-dream-the-march-on-washington/ |title=One Dream: The March on Washington |date=August 2013 |magazine=Time |access-date=February 24, 2018}}

{{Civil rights movement|state=collapsed}}

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Category:1933 births

Category:2020 deaths

Category:American portrait photographers

Category:American photojournalists

Category:Artists from Tucson, Arizona

Category:Artists from New York (state)